Algorithm
by Mintacia
Summary: She strives to be logical like her programming, but that's easier said than done. However irrational, her heart undeniably speeds up when the yellow meets green. She'll have to do her best to ignore these crazy inclinations; there still so much they've got to work on together for the new Castle of Lions. / Hidge /
1. Assembly

Chapter 1: **Assembly**

 _"Assembly code is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an assembler. The conversion process is referred to as assembly, or **assembling the source code**."_

\- **x** -

Two years.

How were they to know it would take two full years?

After Lotor was annihilated in the quintessence field, all of the paladins had agreed on a trip back to Earth. It was necessary, after all, in order to rebuild the Castle of Lions. So, they had all packed up and headed back home.

As it turned out, building a new Castle of Lions was no joke. The instructions that Samuel Holt had had a terribly long list of required materials. Coran's grandfather had spared no expensive in order to create the perfect defense castle.

After long, lengthy discussions, the team had decided on what elements were absolutely necessary and which were unnecessary. Not everyone agreed on every decision: Keith was upset that there would be no invisible wall training maze, Hunk was highly disappointed that the kitchen was going to only be receiving four ovens rather than the previous ten ovens, and Allura was not convinced that Earth toilets would be near as good as the Altean ones.

Regardless, even after many frugal decisions, the paladins were still left with a lot of things that they would have to gather.

This is where they, as a team, made a difficult, yet sensible decision. They agreed to split up.

It didn't make sense for all five lions to travel together to all corners of the universe. Usually, just one paladin was enough, considering the Galra threat was significantly less. So, one cold October, while a cold rain pattered on the windows of the Holt house, the paladins said a quick goodbye to each other.

They didn't realize how long it would take to gather everything.

Coran was the only one who stayed behind on Earth. He, with help from Samuel Holt in navigating through Earthly purchasing customs, bought a big farmhouse about an hour north of the Holt house. He also had an obnoxiously large storage-type barns build on the property behind the house, for keeping lions, supplies, and the future Castle of Lions.

The neighbors were annoyed at the size of the barn. However, if the neighbors had known how deep and deep the barn actually went, they would perhaps been even more annoyed. Or, impressed. Or, both.

This farmhouse base was where the paladins came back too regularly, over the next two years. The thing was though, their visits back rarely overlapped with each other. Occasionally, there would be a collection mission just too difficult to handle on one's own and two paladins would pair up. Lance and Pidge. Allura and Hunk. Shiro and Lance. But other than that, the two years passed without any big reunions.

That's not to say that the paladins didn't communicate. Pidge whipped up a group messenger system that could work from any corner of the known universe. At first, the six paladins practically spammed each other with the system. The messenger system carried everything from updates on missions to random memes across the universe.

Over time, however, the paladins became more and more focused. The easier materials were gradually picked off the list, leaving only the strange and difficult still needing to be gathered. Going undercover, into wormholes, time warps, and into giant space worms became increasingly common for the six paladins. Sometimes, days would go past before one of them would send a message to their group chat.

That's not to say that the paladins were lonely. Pidge was traveling with her brother, Matt. Allura was traveling with her mice. Keith had Blades of Marmora members with him half the time (one of which was usually his mother). Meanwhile, Hunk, Shiro, and Lance would regularly go visit their families whenever they returned back to Earth with a load.

But still, two years.

Two years was a long time for a team that had only spent a year or so bonding together. Sure, they had saved the universe - and other universes, for that matter - but it had all happened in an intense whirlwind.

That's why it felt so unreal to Pidge when she and her brother returned to Earth with their last load. They parked their lion in the barn as always and began to unload the lengths of metallic wire that they had fetched from a far-away, warn-torn world. Most of the basement of this barn was already packed with supplies, so they just unceremoniously dropped the wires into a corner of the barn. Coran would most likely move it later, once he inspected their acquisition.

Coran was more than pleased to see them.

"Ah! Number seven! Number two!" He cheerfully greeted the two of them as they stepped into the farmhouse, and Pidge grimaced. Ever since Coran had began counting Matt and Allura in the height-numbering thing, Pidge's sobriquet had changed by plus two.

Still, that didn't stop her from giving Coran a big hug. "It's good to be back!" She told him honestly; Matt echoed her sentiment.

"Allura returned a few days ago!" Coran informed them after the two siblings had a chance to go change out of their flight clothes. "I believe she's upstairs at the moment, doing some research."

"What about the other paladins?" Matt asked.

"They should all be returning over the next month, if their missions go smoothly." It was an optimistic statement and they all knew it. Hiccups haunted the paladin crew. Each and every one of them had a tendency to stumble onto situations at just the right time to be the hero. Which was good, yes, but also very time consuming.

Oh well. There wasn't anything they could do about that. For Pidge, it was time to relax enjoy being back on Earth. One thing that meant was home cooked meals, instead of dehydrated food packs.

While Coran was no Hunk, he could still whip up a pretty good dinner. Pidge and Matt stayed in the kitchen and chatted with the older man as he whipped up a mean chicken alfredo dish. Before long, the kitchen was full with the smell of pasta. It wasn't long before Allura came padding down the stairs, surely drawn by the smell.

"My my, what are making today?" Allura's voice rang into the kitchen before she walked in herself.

"It's another one of those Earthling recipes that I found on the internets!" Responded Coran cheerfully.

Allura stepped into the kitchen. Two years hadn't changed her face or hair much, but she looked rather casual wearing a pale blue romper and a pair of bunny slippers.

"She's still so beautiful." Muttered Matt softly from beside Pidge, who laughed softly. From the moment her brother had laid eyes on Allura, he'd been obsessed with her. Then again, Matt was also kind of like Lance in that he often was besotted by pretty girls. Over the last two years, Pidge had lost count of how many female aliens that Matt had fallen for. Too many, that was for certain.

Allura was paused in the doorway of the kitchen, staring with wide eyes at the pair of them. "Pidge!" She exclaimed, "You look… feminine!"

Pidge immediately started laughing, embarrassed but amused. "Um, thanks?" She jumped out of her seat and ran over to the other girl, wrapping her arms around her. "Have you grown taller?" The princess of Altea had her own chance to laugh as she shook her head.

"What about me? Do you think I've changed?" Matt chimed in, batting his eyes at Allura.

"Hmm," the Altean responded, stepping closer the pair and peering carefully at Pidge's brother. A rosy tint build up on his face as Allura leaned closer, her eyes sparkling with humor. "I think you're pretty much the same."

With a small, pretend yelp, Matt clapped a hand over his heart. "Your words wound me!"

The conversation after that was light and happy. It was surprising how easy it was to fall back into the same rhythm they had once had years ago. It was like they were one big family, once again.

Pidge wouldn't have had it any other way.

That night, against all odds, both Shiro and Lance sent messages saying they had completed their missions and would be back soon.

Fast forward a week.

Pidge had made herself comfortable in her new room in the farmhouse. In between helping Coran and Allura with coding for the Castle of Lions, she decorated her new room with pictures of both her biological family and her Voltron family, nerdy posters about Stephen Hawking, Marie Curie, and Werner Heisenberg, and her carefully organized collection of video games. Every day, Pidge felt more and more at home.

Although, the farmhouse wouldn't be her home forever. Every day, they get closer to getting the new Castle of Lions put together. Coran guessed that he might be able to have finished in a year. It also helped that he had Allura and two tech-savvy Earthlings helping him now.

Progress proceeded steadily as the days passed.

Lance got back first, one week after his message. However, he dropped his load and pretty much immediately launched off. He explained to Allura - who was the only one around when he got back - that he wanted to visit his family again before he settled in. No one could blame him for this, as his last mission had kept him away for months from Earth.

Shiro returned right almost two weeks after his message. His black lion seemed to appear out of nowhere, streaks of blue erupting behind a black speck. One moment, Pidge was organizing the pens in her desk by color, and the next she was fixated on the sky outside of her bedroom's window. Before she could even see the yellow details of his lion, Pidge was jumping out of her seat and darting out the door.

She wasn't the only one. The rest of the household swarmed on Shiro and hugs were exchanged. Pidge playfully told him his arms were now thicker than this head, and he retorted that she finally looked unquestionably like a girl with her long, wavy hair. As Pidge howled with laughter, Shiro reached forward and ruffled her hair, as if she was a small child. However, she made him regret that by quickly licking his good hand before he could draw it back.

Later that day, they all gathered in the kitchen and Coran whipped up a hefty meal. Just like that, their family grew by another member.

Two days later, Lance finally returned, looking tanner than ever. The first thing he did was embrace Allura. The second thing he did was stick his tongue out at Matt over Allura's shoulder. _Same old, same old,_ thought Pidge with amusement.

It started to become tradition that, every evening, Coran would cook a huge meal. On the first night that Lance returned, he insisted on some Cuban food in celebration. However, after Coran managed to burn sandwiches, Lance didn't make that request again. That didn't stop Coran from trying every dish under the sun, though. While Coran would whip up mystery meals, complete with exotic vegetables and meats (the paladins learned quickly not to ask what they were eating), they would all sit in the kitchen and talk.

Allura would discuss the latest developments in the construction of the Castle of Lions. Lance would tell everyone about all the heroic things he'd done during his adventures. Shiro would try to rope the group into discussions into war history, both Earthly and otherwise. Matt would bring up different styles of encoding (although Pidge was the only one who really joined in these conversations). Coran would rave about how great parsnips were.

Keith showed up out of nowhere. He was always bad about using the messenger, so it wasn't all that surprising to the group. Being Keith, he wasn't all that enthusiastic about the welcoming committee and seemed to find all the hugs and attention awkward. That didn't stop Pidge from going in for a big hug, much to Keith's discomfort.

"You grew your hair out." He commented, once she finally relinquished him from her bear hug.

"So did you!" Pidge chirped in reply, reaching up to touch the black hair that eked past his shoulders. Keith batted her hand away with an amused huff.

Lance appeared from behind Keith and dug his hands into Keith's black hair. "Why does long hair look good on you but it makes me look homeless?" Much to Pidge's surprise, a dark red color spread out on Keith's face. A very brief expression crossed Keith's face, but it was quickly replaced with a deep scowl. Without even turning to face Lance, Keith stormed away from the two of them.

Huffing, Lance shouted after him, "Yea, nice to see you too!" Shrugging, he pouted, "I can't believe he's still a jerk."

Despite Keith's initial coldness to some of the group, dinner managed to melt his barriers. By the third night he was back, Keith was sitting between Shiro and Lance, arguing about battle tactics.

Sitting there, listening to Shiro try to convince Lance to read War and Peace ("That thing is like ten million pages, dude! No way!"), Pidge found herself thinking of the Grinch. Well, not the whole stealing-Christmas thing. It was late July time and the ninety degree (Fahrenheit) temperature outside did not lend itself to any wintery wonderful feelings. No, rather, it was the part of the story about how the Grinch's heart grew so many sizes. With every paladin that came back, she kind of felt like her heart was growing in size. It was like her family was going back to being whole.

It was over a week later, but finally Hunk sent them a message, telling them he'd be back in a few days.

Pidge was threw the roof with excitement. To say that she and Hunk had been close would be an understatement. During their time on the old Castle of Lions, they had often been inseparable. Not only had they worked together, coding, building, exploring, but she'd also been his main test subject for his new food dishes (sometimes to her detriment, but oh well).

The next few days seemed to crawl by. Pidge flew around the house, jumping from task to task. Nothing seemed to keep her concentration for long. When she got too aggravated at her code to concentrate, she switched to impatient cleaning, which Allura was thrilled about.

As Pidge wandered around the farmhouse with a bottle of Pledge tucked under an arm, wiping at any and every surface, Allura followed her around with plenty of compliments, "Alteans believe cleanliness is very important! I'm so proud that you have dedicated yourself to this task. I can't say I see the same sort of dedication in most Earthlings… have you seen Lance's room recently? Not pleasant..."

Even cleaning lost its interest. On the third day, Pidge stuck to her room, sprawled on her bed, playing pointless games on a game tablet she'd picked up from a space mall.

A knock on the door caught her attention. For half a second, her heart raced and she glanced up with a big grin.

"Oh, hey Matt." She tried to hide her disappointment by keeping her smile.

Her brother plopped down on the foot of her bed. "Whatcha doing?" He asked, his tone nonchalant despite an amused twinkle in his eyes.

Pidge eyed him suspiciously. "Playing a game where you collect cats and send them on missions." Matt gave her a blank stare, "What? It's cute." He quirked an eyebrow up at her. She let out an annoyed huff, clicked the tablet closed, and sat up. "I can't concentrate today. It's whatever."

Matt grinned deviously. "You're excited about Hunk."

Pidge knew exactly where Matt was going with this conversation. Before they had had their big fight with Lotor, he had pulled her aside to talk to her about Hunk. Since they were so tight knit, Matt had made some assumptions. Pidge had been quick to tell him, _oh no we're just friends_. For some reason, Matt didn't believe her. Not even when she told him about Shay. _Look,_ Matt had told her, I _'ve been around Hunk for several weeks now. I've never heard him mention her, but he can't stop talking about you._

 _Well, duh,_ she had responded to him, _we work together. And we're busy saving the world together. There's a lot to talk about._ Pidge had insisted that they drop the conversation. Unfortunately for her, that didn't stop Matt from dropping hints on the regular, even after they'd all split up to gather supplies for the new Castle of Lions.

"He was, like, my best friend." Pidge stated, smiling back evenly at her brother. Honestly, it didn't bug her that much that he couldn't understand. Matt was too much of a sucker for romance, after all. Every single day he fell in love with Allura when he saw her in the morning. Then whenever they went into town, he'd fall in love with the cashier girls at every store they'd visit.

Matt was fickle. Pidge wasn't.

Over the last two years, Pidge had strove to be more like her programs. Calculated, determined, rational, like a good algorithm. She knew that she had a tendency to make irrational choices when her emotions became overwhelming. So, she'd been working on resisting that temptation. She focused on being level-headed, driven by logic rather than feelings.

Not to say that she was resistance to feelings. The buzz of energy that she felt through her entire body at the moment was evidence of that.

"Sure…. Which is why you're here, playing games instead of programming the training deck like you promised Allura."

Rolling her eyes, Pidge hopped off her bed. "Me and him are _friends_." She emphasized the world, before flicking her brother squarely in the forehead. "But okay, you made your point! I'll go be useful." He shrugged before picking up her tablet and turning on.

"Okay, you do that and I'll play this cat game."

"What, that's not fair!" Pidge squawked indignantly and the two siblings began squabbling over the tablet. Both cuss words and punches were thrown, although none seriously.

Eventually, Pidge relented and left her brother to play the cat game while she went to go help Allura.

The rest of the day passed easily. That evening, Coran cooked some sausages and pan fried an unholy amount of parsnips. Pidge found herself forgetting about everything but the people around her as they laughed, joked, and discussed anything and everything.

That night, she took a quick shower, and then stood afterwards in the steam staring at herself in the mirror. She was eighteen and some change now, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly what had changed over the last two years. Obviously her hair was longer and had gone back to being curly instead of just puffy (although it hung limply when damp). Her jawbone was also more… there? Defined? She wasn't sure how to explain it.

There was also the normal changes to her figure. As any girl going through her teenage years, she'd put on some weight in certain areas in her body. At fifteen, she could pass for a boy any time that she really needed to. Now… it would be a lot harder to do. Not impossible though; Pidge wasn't by any means gifted.

She blew a raspberry at the mirror, toweled her hair dry, and pranced back into her room. She switched into her coziest pajamas shorts and a thin cotton tank top, and crawled into bed.

 _Maybe tomorrow, Hunk will be back,_ Pidge thought softly, _then everyone will be back._

Her Voltron family would be whole again. Hell, they could even form Voltron once again if they wanted to. The thought made Pidge smile, her toes curling pleasure. Exploring the universe with Matt had been fun, but there had always been a hole in her heart, something missing.

Memories of their year fighting Zarkon, Lotor, and their armies swirled around in her mind as she fell asleep.

When she next awoke, someone was in her room. She peeled her eyes open slowly, thinking that she must be hearing someone walking by in the hallway. Only, there was unmistakably a shadowy figure partially blocking her moonlit window. This person moved slowly, stealthily inching closer to her bed.

Funnily enough, this didn't frighten Pidge at all. First of all, both the barn and farmhouse had massive security systems rigged up, so strangers couldn't get in without setting out an obnoxiously loud alarm and several laser guns. Secondly, she and her brother had a prank war that had been going on for the last fifteen years. It wasn't all that unusual for either he and her to slip into each other's room and set up a booby trap. Thirdly, Lance had gotten into the habit of borrowing her video games, sometimes in the dead of night right after he finished whatever game he had been playing.

She didn't know whether it was her brother or Lance, but she was ready to pounce. Pidge observed the figure as subtly as she could, keeping her eyes half-closed.

The figure drew close and reached out towards her bed stand.

A hand silently placed a shiny four-legged object at her bed stand. Prank, Pidge decided, it's gotta be Matt. She wasn't sure what that object was, but it wouldn't surprise her if it was supposed to explode or maybe start screeching obnoxiously in the wee hours of the morning. Matt was crafty and unpredictable with his pranks, as any good Holt is.

So Pidge did the only reasonable thing. She grabbed her pillow, flipped onto her knees, and swung hard at the person in her room. They yelped and she managed two good whacks before the person fell back and out of her pillow's reach.

"Serves you right, Matt!" She exclaimed through giggles.

"Ah, I'm not Matt." The other person replied. Sure enough, that voice was not Matt. Whoops. That voice…

Pidge's mind froze. "Hunk?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Although she already knew he was due to arrive any time soon, Pidge could hardly believe it.

"Farmhouse, lights on." She commanded the computer system that she had been tweaking over the last few weeks. The lights to her room, like she commanded, winked on.

Sure enough, Hunk was sitting in the center of her room, wearing a pair of cargo pants and a black shirt. Only… it also wasn't Hunk. Or, it wasn't the Hunk that Pidge remembered. She remembered the round-faced, sixteen year old boy that puked any time the ship rolled too hard. This boy - man? - sprawled on her floor was at least fifty pounds lighter, with muscular shoulders, arms, and legs. His face had changed too, losing a lot of its roundness.

Pidge forgot how to breath. Hunk was… a hunk. What had happened to her pudgy best friend who was constantly trying to bake cookies with new and better ingredients? This Hunk had even abandoned the orange bandana in exchange for a more styled, shorter-on-the-sides style hair cut.

A heavy silence fell over both of them, as they stared at each other. Pidge fought for words, so caught up with her own surprise that she didn't even notice that Hunk was struggling with something familiar.

Then, after a few moments, the surprise passed. Pidge was surrounded by hot guys on a daily basis, so this wasn't something she couldn't deal with. A simple emotion flooded into her - happiness. Her best friend was back.

"Holy shit." She giggled like a school girl, covering her mouth with both her hands. "You're back."

Before Hunk could even reply, Pidge had launched herself at him. She flew off the bed and plastered herself to his (whoa, muscular) chest. It took him a moment, but he wrapped his arms around her too and laughed. "It's good to see you too, Pidge." He spoke softly in her ear, probably trying not to wake up the rest of the house. "Seriously, I didn't mean to wake you. It's like three AM."

Pidge sat back relaxed backwards, her legs tucked sloppily underneath her, and shrugged. "Who cares? I'm kind of upset you didn't want to wake me to say hi." She glared at him, but it was playful glare.

"But I brought you a present." This statement came with a big set of puppy eyes. It had been way too long since Pidge had been subjected to Hunk's puppy eyes, and she definitely couldn't resist them. Or presents. Presents were great too.

Biting her lip in excitement, Pidge leaned in a little and told Hunk softly, "Yes, that does make it better."

The shiny object. Curiosity nearly erupting out of her, Pidge jumped to feet and took two little steps over to the night stand. With the lights on, she could see that this object was actually a tiny replica of a lion. Only, it was missing all of the color and some of the detail. It was, in all honestly, a rather sloppy replicate. Not that that made it any less adorable.

Scooping up the silver lion, she hopped back to where she'd been and dropped back down in front of Hunk. He hadn't moved from where he'd fallen initially, so his legs were stretched out on either side of her.

Turning the lion over in her hands, she asked him, "So what is it?"

His eyes twinkled with amusement, "Ask it. Its name is the Silver Lion."

Pidge glanced up at Hunk, highly fascinated. "Okay." Turning her gaze back down to the lion, she asked politely, "Silver Lion, what are you?"

The eyes of the little lion lit up and it responded in a little growly voice, "I am a personal assistant."

"You can ask it other questions too." Hunk added softly, clearly very excited to be showing Pidge the little lion.

She paused to think for a moment, her fingers carefully tracing the joints of the lion's legs. "Silver Lion, who made you?"

"I was made by Hunk." Only, the lion really said _hoonk_ , rather than Hunk. It was hard to not giggle at that. Hunk shrugged.

"There's more than a few quirks I've got to work out."

"I think it's great." Pidge told him honestly, but couldn't help but giggle as she asked, "But is this the Alexa programming?"

Hunk pouted at that, "Not entirely! I uh… made some changes. Like changing its name to Silver Lion." His hand came forward to tentatively touch the little lion. "It's silly but, I dunno, I thought it was kind of cute."

Pidge beamed at him and hugged the little lion against her chest. "It is. It's adorable."

"I'm glad you think so." Hunk huffed softly and smiled before running a hand through his hair. "I was kind of worried you'd think it was lame."

Rolling her eyes, Pidge reached forward and gave Hunk's chest a good, playful nudge.

Was his face looking a little red? No, she was imaging that. _Silly Katie_ , she thought to herself.

"Ah… well, it's three AM and you should sleep." Hunk stated as he reached forward and poked her right between her eyebrows. "Not to mention I'd like to get some sleep too. I've been awake for, like, the last twenty hours because my cargo was sensitive to solar radiation and I had to get it into the barn quickly.

Pidge understood and resisted the urge to argue. "Fine." She huffed, before poking Hunk's chest back. "But tomorrow, I'm going to show you what I've done so far on the new Castle."

"Deal." The tan Samoan replied with a laugh.

Pidge hopped to her feet and offered Hunk a hand. Then, she gave him one last big hug before she relented to letting him leave.

The door clicked close and Pidge dropped back onto her bed. She wasn't exactly sure how she was going to fall asleep now. She was much too excited. Everyone was back… team Voltron was whole again. A picture hanging on the wall near her bed drew her attention. It was one that they had took soon after they'd all gotten to Earth, of all of the paladins and Coran and Matt standing in front of the Holt house. In the picture, she was sitting on Hunk's shoulders. He'd scooped her up unceremoniously after she kept complaining that she was too short to be seen.

When sleep finally caught up to her, Pidge found herself swallowed by dreams of Hunk, War and Peace, and parsnips.

\- **x** - **x** \- **x** -

 **A/N:** Getting back into writing for the first time in four years... feels nice. :)


	2. Autocode

Chapter 2: **Autocode**

 _"Autocode represents a group of coding systems. The first autocode was created in order to simplify of the earliest programming, which were often **abstruse and hard to interpret**."_

\- **x** -

"Pidge!"

The girl nearly shot out of bed when her door slammed open. Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she muttered frantically, "Ah, what, what is it!?" A thin, blurry figure stood in her door frame. Pidge grabbed for her glasses, her hand knocking softly into a shiny metal lion sitting on her night stand.

"Hunk is back!" Lance exclaimed, darting further into her room, his lanky form becoming clear as Pidge slammed her glasses onto her face.

Huffing, she glared at the red paladin. "Yes, I know! Geez, are you trying to give me a heart attack, Lance?"

"No," He replied, huffing, "How do you know too? Why does everybody know before me!?"

"Because you're an idiot." Keith interrupted as he passed by the Pidge's door.

"Hey, you shut up, mullet head!" Pidge rolled her eyes and then rolled out of bed.

"Is there a reason you woke me, other than to shout at me?" She asked Lance (who was still staring down the hallway, cleary displeased).

"I was thinking we could go wake his ass up and -" Lance cut off mid-sentence when he looked back at her. A strange gurgling came out of his mouth before he pivoted around on one foot to face the hallway. "Jesus, woman!" He howled in shock.

Freezing, Pidge stared at him. "What, what is it now?" There was always something with Lance. He was easily the biggest drama queen on the team.

"Could you, like, put on clothes or something?" Lance said, fanning his face aggressively with his hand.

Pidge's face heated up immediately. "What! I have clothes on, you twat!"

"Yea but your top is pretty much see-through!" Lance yelled back.

 _What?_ Pidge had never quite felt her face get so hot. Was her top really that bad? She glanced down at the tank top. It was one of favorite new purchases, something she'd picked up at a store in town a week or two ago. It was a very light green and said in squarish letters, IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN.

"Look, change into something decent and then meet me in front of Hunk's room." The red paladin told her before stepping out of her room and slamming the door behind him.

 _He's crazy,_ Pidge concluded as she glared at the door. Her pajamas were fine… or at least, she really hoped they were. After all, Lance wasn't the only one who saw her in the pajamas. Somehow, thinking that Hunk might have saw more than he wanted to was worse than Lance seeing the same thing.

Shoving that thought out of her mind, Pidge ditched her pajamas in the hamper and quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt.

Lance was waiting for her in the hallway upstairs, two Nerf water guns in his hands. Without bothering to explain, he handed one to Pidge. Pidge found herself grinning as she weighed the Nerf gun in her hand. _Just like old times._

"Let's go." Lance whispered in a flat monotone.

They basically kicked the door in as they busted in, wielding their weapons and hooting like banshees. It was funny how coordinated the two were, despite all their time apart. Almost at the same time, they began firing at Hunk, who was sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

Hunk yelped as the water hit him. That wasn't surprising, as Pidge could feel the movement of ice cubes in the water storage of the gun. The water was definitely cold. Lance had really out done himself with this. "Dudes!" Hunk shrieked as he jumped out of bed.

And Pidge and Lance immediately started howling with laughter. Hunk was wearing a pair of boxers with the yellow lion all over them. In fact, Pidge was pretty sure she'd seen that same thing (along with all the colors of lions) at a space mall recently. "Dude, nice underwear!" Lance managed to sputter between his laughing.

Hunk was red in the face and grabbed his pillow. "Oh, you're going to regret this. Aaah!" With that, he ran at the two of them, flailing his pillow wildly. Lance took the majority of the hits, but one well aimed pillow swipe knocked Pidge, who was still uncontrollably laughing, off her feet.

"Comrade down! Comrade down! Retreat!" Lance screamed as he emptied the last bit of water from his gun. He then turned and took off down the hallway, yelling over his shoulder, "Welcome back Hunk! Put some pants on and come make us some pancakes!"

Pidge could barely breath, she was still laughing too hard. Clutching her stomach, she tried to calm herself down. Meanwhile, Hunk nudged her with his foot.

"Okay, haha, yes, it's so funny." Crossing his arms, he stated defensively, "They're really comfortable."

"D-do…." She could barely get out her question, "do you have one for every lion?" Pidge couldn't help herself. Hunk's face managed to get even rosier. He rolled his eyes, turned on heel, and walked over to his closet.

By the time Pidge managed to quell her laughter and sit up all the way, Hunk had pulled on a pair of pants and was yanking a shirt on.

Wiping at the tears that had welled in the corners of her eyes, Pidge put on her best angelic face and said, "Aw, I'm sorry Hunk, your boxers are cool."

"Yea, yea." Hunk huffed, his face still red as he stormed over to where she was still sitting on the ground. Without warning, he reached down and wrapped his arms around her, hefting her up and throwing her partially over his shoulder.

"Hey!" Pidge yelped before laughing even more.

With that, he started moving, carrying her out of his room and down the stairs.

Bright light was spilling to the kitchen when they entered and something was crackling as it cooked. Only, Pidge couldn't really see what was cooking, who was cooking, or who was even in the kitchen in in her current predicament. "Wow," Lance spoke up from the far side of the kitchen, "I didn't know you took prisoners, Hunk."

"Hey, sometimes you've gotta do what you gotta do." The yellow paladin replied with a shrug that nearly knocked Pidge off his shoulder.

"Good to see you again Hunk!" Coran interrupted their back and forth, "Take a seat, I'm in the middle of making everyone omelets. I'll make you one."

"Oh, I don't mind helping." Hunk said as he stabilized Pidge on his shoulder. She wasn't sure why he was so intent on torturing her (although it did highly amused her), but she wasn't some helpless damsel. She was the green paladin, after all! As Coran politely declined Hunks request and insisted that he was still focusing on improving his own culinary skill, she began to plot her escape.

First she wiggled back and forth, to try and destabilize him. Unfortunately, that didn't work. Hunk just grabbed her waist with both his hands and held her steady, as he continued his conversation with Coran about putting bell peppers in an omelet.

Huffing, Pidge dug through her memories for an idea. Then, it hit her. A dangerous grin grew on her face as she cracked her knuckles and readied for an assault.

Hunk was ticklish.

Not only did she dig her little fingers into his sides, but she made sure to under his shirt so he could further suffer from her rather cold hands. This tactic worked almost too well, with Hunk yelping and dropping Pidge off him. She might have hit the ground hard, but he grabbed her haphazardly on her descent. "Why are your fingers so freezing? That can't be normal." He huffed at her.

Pidge shrugged and laughed. She yanked herself out of his grasp and darted several steps away, plopping herself in a stool by the counter.

Finally, she could actually look around the kitchen. Lance was sitting in the stool next to her. Shiro, Allura, and Matt were sitting at the table nearby. She didn't miss the look that Matt gave her, and responded by sticking out her tongue at him and making a face. _He doesn't know what he's talking about._

A moment later, Hunk plopped down in the stool next to hers. "By the way, great welcoming party, Lance. Super appreciated it." He spoke dryly, but there was a strong hint of amusement in his words. Pidge wondered if Hunk was feeling the same way she was, like yea, this was how things should be. _Back to the way things were._

"You're welcome, bae." Lance's reply was completed with an over the top wink.

Coran's omelets were good, although Hunk whispered under his breath that they could use more salt and maybe some more cheese. It was hard to satisfy the food connoisseur.

In between bites, Hunk shared with the group how his last trip went. He had captured some very dangerous, explosive chemical from the clouds around some star. It hadn't been easy, as the area near to it had been crawling with leftover Galra forces. The other paladins had plenty of questions, but Pidge mostly just listened. She liked hearing Hunk tell his story, in the Hunk-like way that he does. It was also reassuring to her that, while he might have changed physically, he was still much the same as far as his mannerisms were concerned.

After breakfast, the two tech savvy coders headed to the barn. Pidge was super excited to show Hunk the new (partial) Castle of Lions. While only the framework and some of the rooms had been loosely constructed, it was still rather impressive already.

From the moment that the two of them stepped into the new Castle, she began pointing out everything and anything.

"This is our new iris scanner, it's really similar to some of the ones we've found on Galra ships. Only that, of course, I improved the -"

"- and these doors are a special, laser-repelling metal! It was Coran's idea but -"

"- I coded these lights! They're motion activated! The previous ones were activated by the door opening but I think this idea is better don't you? Anyways -"

"- you probably noticed we changed up the hallway. The new plan is more simplified so it's harder to get lost in our own hallways even if you really try -"

"- bedrooms are down there. Or, well, they will be, they're not built yet. I think that's gonna happen soon? Allura's been working on the bridge for awhile now so maybe she'll -"

Babbling was one of Pidge's habits. It didn't even occur to her that she was running her mouth an excess amount. To his credit, Hunk just patiently listened, looked around, and absorbed it in. Occasionally, he made a little comment here and there, but Pidge really didn't relent enough to let him say much.

By the time that reached the training hall, a few minutes later, Pidge had nearly winded herself jabbering on about the details of the new Castle. Taking a deep breath, she concluded her tour with, "And, this is the training hall. It's what I'm working on right now."

Hunk waited for a moment, almost as if he was checking to see if she really was done with her spiel. Then, he said with an easy smile, "Cool, show me you've got done so far!"

Thirty minutes later and Pidge had not only booted up the system, but also convinced Hunk to put on a prototype suit that she'd been working on.

Well, suit wasn't quite the right word for it. It was a rather simple set-up: it was composed of long black panels, a inch wide, that ran along the front and the back of the wearer's appendages, held in place by elastic straps. The panels along the arm were then additionally connected together by slightly wider panels that ran across the chest and back; the legs were attached to each other in a similar fashion.

"You sure this is safe?" He asked, nervously looking at the black panel that ran along the front of his right arm. "Like, 100% safe?"

"Basically." Pidge replied pleasantly. "So, I'm sure you remember that the training room took some of the biggest budget cuts."

"Yea, Keith wasn't happy about that."

"Right, well, I've been trying to work on a technical work around. We don't have the invisible walls or the practice drones, but my thought is that there's still a cheap way to simulate real combat." Pidge's fingers flew as she typed on the keyboard, navigating through the Altean computer screen. Two taps to the enter key initiated the start-up protocol. "Okay, so right now I'm starting up a simple hologram program."

The training room wasn't outfitted with an expensive hologram set-up by any means, but it could whip up a partially-translucent flying robot sentry without too much trouble. Pidge still hoped that they'd be able to make some more updates, both in hardware and software, to the hologram simulator, but for now, the basic hologram program worked fine enough.

Hunk eyed the robot sentry as it whizzed in circles around him.

"Am I supposed to, um, punch it?" He said, holding out his empty hands to emphasize his lack of weaponry.

Scratching the back of her head, Pidge admitted, "I kind of haven't gotten around to programming a weapon to interact with the hologram yet. So at the moment, there's no way to fight back. I've been focusing more on the suit cause… well, it's so cool!" Pidge beamed widely as she finished her sentence. She really hoped that Hunk could see the genius in the suit by the end of his trial.

"Okay, well, let's see what it can do." Hunk said, grinning at her antics.

Three more keyboard taps started up the attack protocol and turned on the suit. "Start by dodging the shots." Pidge told him.

So he did. The first few shots, Hunk easily rolled out of the way. Years as a paladin had made sure that he, like the rest of them, could dodge a laser blast.

"Okay, now let it hit you."

Hunk turned and squinted at her suspiciously before jumping out of the way of another blast. "Is this going to hurt?"

Pidge put both her hands up. "No, I swear it won't. The hologram's blasts are holographic just like it, and anyways, the suit's not about pain." _Cause technically, discomfort is different from pain._ Pidge didn't verbalize that thought. She didn't want to give Hunk a reason to chicken out of being her guinea pig.

Shrugging, Hunk accepted her promise. The next two shots hit him square in the chest. Each shot was accompanied by a cartoonish beep, which was a sound effect that Pidge had stolen from a Mario game.

Pidge tapped pause on the application and the little sentry robot frozen in place. Tentatively, Hunk moved his arms and legs, testing out the suite. "It… gets tighter?" He guessed. Pidge shook her head. "No, okay… Wait, it restrict moments. It becomes more rigid!" He guessed right and Pidge gave him a big grin.

"Yea! Every shot you take makes it harder to bend your arms and legs. It basically gives you an impediment for getting shot. Kind of like if you got injured during battle."

"That's pretty brilliant, Pidge!" That was exactly what Pidge wanted to hear. To say she was pleased would be a severe understatement.

Bouncing on her toes, she asked Hunk, "Want to keep fighting it?"

"Sure, but give me a few more. One robot is too easy."

Ten robots was definitely enough. Not thirty seconds after Pidge had dramatically upped the difficulty, Hunk was swearing and jumping about wildly. "You asked for it!" She reminded him, chortling.

"Well this wasn't what I meant -" He didn't manage to finish his complaint, as half of the bots all fired at the same time. Hunk jumped back ungracefully and tripped over his own feet, rolling backwards.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Caught up in her own laughter, Pidge could barely concentrate enough to pause the program.

"Yea yea." Hunk huffed from where he was laying, locked in place by the suite. "Like you could do better."

"Oh, I won't argue with you on that. But, that was pretty funny." Pidge replied as she clicked through the program until she found the unlock command for the suit. She ran the command and glanced up at Hunk… who was still laying on the ground, his arms twisted awkwardly.

She waited a moment, waited for him to start moving.

Hunk cleared his throat loudly, then commented, "Any time Pidge. This suit isn't exactly the most comfortable thing." After a moment, he added almost shyly, "No offense. It's still really cool."

 _Oh no._ Gulping, Pidge ran the command prompt again… and it still didn't work. Which didn't make any sense! It worked the last time she ran it! Then again, she had made some changes to the suit's coding. Not major changes, but even small change could possibly interfere with the command prompt.

"Um… hold on Hunk. Give me a second."

From his position on his back, Hunk's head shot up, peering over his body at her. "Why don't I like the sound of your voice? Oh my god Pidge, please tell me I'm not trapped in this thing."

"You're not trapped!" She snapped back, chewing her lower lip nervously as she opened her source code and began to key through it. "I just… am not having any success with the release command."

"That means I'm trapped!" Hunk howled, letting his head fall back down. "Pidge! Shouldn't that have been something you tested before I put this on!?"

"I did test it beforehand..." Pidge whimpered. That comment stung a bit. Pidge worked frantically through the code, trying to find out what was causing the malfunction. "I updated the code a bit yesterday and I don't know, now it won't work."

Hunk was silent for a long moment. Finally, he sighed, "Ah, look, I ah… I didn't mean to snap at you. If I have to be stuck like this forever, then I accept that. Although, you're going to have to cook and feed me. Which means following my directions to the tee! I need an acceptable amount of cheese in my omelet, _damn it_."

Rolling her eyes, Pidge smiled a little and snapped at him, "Oh shush you, you aren't trapped. There's manual snaps on the suit. I'm not dumb."

Scavenging through the code was proving utterly useless. She would have to do some diagnostics and comparisons with the code prior to her last edits versus the newer version of the code. Or maybe just start over from the last update. Regardless, Pidge ditched her computer screen and hustled over to Hunk's side.

He raised an eyebrow at her quizzically as she eased herself down next to him.

"Hold on, I'm going to roll you onto your side."

"Not really sure what I'm supposed to hold - eep!" Being pulled onto his side kept Hunk from finishing his sarcastic comment.

Her fingers ran over the black plastic panel that ran over the back of his left bicep. _Where is it?_ She thought to herself. _I know I put that safety released here._ As she traced her fingers along the sides of the panel, she made a mental note to make the safety release an bright orange color or something future suits.

She noticed Hunk swallowing in an anxious manner, but she didn't say anything about it. She was pretty sure he was nervous about the suit, although it did cross her mind that maybe he found it weird to be curled around her, locked in place. _Nah, we're buddies, this is no big deal._

"Do you know what you're doing?" Hunk said softly. Why he was practically whispering, Pidge wasn't sure. It was just the two of them in the training room, after all.

"Mostly." She admittedly, speaking just as softly as he did.

There! Tucked along the top, near the corner of the panel. It flexed forward as she dug her fingers between it and Hunk's skin. Only, as she pulled hard, trying to get it to pop, Hunk rocked forward.

"Whooaa." He said as Pidge took her hands away, causing him to rock backwards again.

"Shoot." She huffed, frowning as she thought. "How much movement do you have in your shoulder?"

"Um, not a lot?" Hunk replied.

That was better than none. "Okay, I'll be gentle."

"Gentle!? With what!?" Rather than explaining, Pidge carefully grabbed his left arm and pulled it so that it was further extended. As she did so, Hunk whimpered little ows and Pidge responded in kind with little _I'm sorry_ s.

Finally, she got it so his hand was right at her hip. Scooting forward, she pressed his hand against the side of her hip.

" _What you are doing?_ " Hunk nearly hissed, his face going bright red.

Confused, Pidge apologized again and then explained, "I'm just propping you against me. That you don't roll around when I'm trying to undo the safety latches." She wasn't sure why it was such a big deal. With Hunk's looks, she was positive he had to have put his hands on girls before. Probably many girls… hm. That was a weird and kind of unpleasant thought for Pidge.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Pidge added, "Don't worry, I don't have cooties."

"Oh great." Hunk responded dryly, his voice a pitch or two higher than usual.

This tactic worked well. With Hunk bracing his hand against her, Pidge was able to pop all three latches on the plastic. It eased its grip on Hunk's arm and she was able to pull it off.

Flexing his arm, Hunk sighed in relief.

"Okay, now, I need you to hold onto me again so I can get your leg." Pidge instructed as she stretched itself partially over him so that she could access his left leg.

"Grab… um, where?" Hunk responded, eyeing her body carefully, as if it was some sort of bomb that might go off. Scoffing, Pidge grabbed his hand and place it on her hip. He gulped again.

"This won't hurt." She huffed at him, frustrated that he was still nervous about her suit. Now, she'd be the first to admit that this wasn't the most optimal way to get it off. It was downright awkward and she was trying not to think about she was leaned over him. It was also strangely distracting to have his warm hand against her hip. Strange, but not unpleasant.

It took her almost a minute to find the latches on the leg panels. A few quick yanks and she had the leg released. Hunk carefully slit his leg out of it and tried to sit up. Only, he could only pick himself up a few inches before the panels on his right hip stopped him from leaving up too far.

"Hold on, roll over." Pidge commanded. Hunk whined but did as he was told. Crawling around to his other side, Pidge repeated the process of popping open the latches on his right arm and then his right leg. As soon as the suit was all the way off, Hunk sat all the way up and rubbed his legs.

Curling up legs up in front of her, Pidge stared at Hunk from behind her knees. "Sorry." She muttered softly, her glasses askew from being shoved so close to her knees.

Hunk leaned closer to her and his expression softened. "It's fine. But let's get Lance to test that out in the future." He reached forward, almost tentatively, and pushed his fingers into her wavy brown hair.

Pidge was no foreigner to getting her hair ruffled. She blew a raspberry at Hunk before burying her face all the way against her knees.

"Ah, come on Pidge." She peeked upward and found Hunk's face about two inches from hers, his gaze both concerned and amused.

Then something happened. Some part of her brain malfunctioned. Something in her source code stopped working like it should. It was hard to pinpoint, this glitch, hard to explain. But suddenly, strongly, Pidge wanted Hunk to lean forward and close the space between them. She wanted to feel his lips on hers. There was something about his gaze, something about his dark, golden brown eyes…. Pidge was left, frozen, stuck, as empty as a 404 error.

Then, thankfully, a strain of logical thought broke through and overrode that error. Blushing deeply, she scooted back an inch or two and managed to make her voice work. "Ah, yea, what?"

Hunk inspected her carefully and didn't reply right away. Finally, he spoke slowly, tentatively, "Do you... want me to look at that code?"

"Oh, yea, that'd be good." She replied, breathing deeply as she attempted to calm herself.

The next few hours were much more normal. She and Hunk gradually went to the code bit by bit and he helped her catch some inconsistencies. Together, they got the release feature fully functioning and even began working on some programing for how each limp responded differently to being hit.

It was Shiro who came down to find them. "Hey, Coran is making a big lunch. Why don't you guys come have some?"

"Coran's making lunch? Ah! I could have helped! Maybe I still can…!" Hunk exclaimed as he rushed out of the training room. Pidge and Shiro followed at his heels, both smiling in amusement.

Lunch was good, even though Hunk hadn't been given a chance to help.

Team Voltron sat in a large circle outside on a huge blanket ("I found it at a, um, what is was it, a beetle market!" said Coran) with a big tray of sandwiches in the middle of the blanket. Lance was relatively critical of these sandwiches at first. Keith flicked him in the side of the head when he tried to ask, _are you sure you didn't burn them this time?_

"Just eat, stupid." The half Galra boy growled at the red paladin.

Other than that, their impromptu picnic was going pretty well. As they feasted, Allura explained she felt like they needed to do something to celebrate now that Hunk was back. She'd heard about picnics on some of the American TV shows she'd been watching and it had seemed perfect.

"Besides, we can all go swimming afterward!" Allura added cheerfully.

"That's a great idea!" Lance quickly agreed, his eyes gleaming as he beamed at Allura. Beside him, Keith scowled at Lance, then scowled down at his sandwich.

Watching all this, Pidge wondered what was going on in Keith's head. Did he not like swimming? Was he tired of Lance's fruitless romantic pursuits, in the same way that she was tired of her own brother's pursuits? Before she could wonder about it more, Matt started to speak.

"It is sure nice to have you back, Hunk." Her brother said. There was a subtle undertone to his voice, something devious. Pidge narrowed her eyes at her brother. _Don't you dare_ , she tried to mentally communicate with him, _whatever you're planning, don't._

Unfortunately, Matt and Pidge weren't the kind of siblings who could communicate mentally.

"Haha, thanks Matt." Hunk responded as he reached for another sandwich.

"Yea, well, it's just too bad that Pidge seems commandeering you entirely today. The rest of us would like to spend time with you too, y'know?"

Pidge didn't want to see Hunk's reaction. The malfunction resurfaced in her thoughts, causing a heat to rush to her face. Before anyone could say anything more, she chucked her half eaten sandwich at her brother. The sandwich pretty much exploded on Matt, showering him with ham and lettuce.

There, that handled that.

The circle of paladins went silent, other than a few soft chortles from Keith.

It was Hunk who broke the silence, speaking cautiously. "Well, I only just got back. I'm sure everyone here will get a little Hunk time… um, eventually."

Matt picked the pieces of lettuce and ham off himself while staring down Pidge. Then, he dared to open his mouth, probably to say something just as dumb.

Violence between the Holt siblings, even in their late teens, was nothing abnormal to either. Pidge snatched up another sandwich and was about to peg Matt again.

It was the firm command to stop from Shiro and the cry of concern for the sandwich from Coran that got Pidge to stop. "Pidge, let's not forget that we're a team, and teams… well, respect each other. By not throwing sandwiches at each other." Shiro said in his authoritative yet still polite tone.

"Okay, fine, _dad_." Pidge huffed with obvious sarcasm, crossing her arms.

The rest of lunch pass without issue.

Well, unless you count the impromptu sandwich eating contest as an issue.

It was almost impressive, how many sandwiches Lance and Hunk could swallow down each. Coran was thrilled they liked his sandwiches so much (Pidge was pretty sure he misunderstood the _why_ behind the contest). Most of the team was mildly amused with the show, with the exception of Keith. He sat there pinching the bridge of his nose, occasionally reminding Lance that he was a total idiot.

Lance didn't seem to mind. Rather, he made a point of chewing louder every time Keith said something.

The contest didn't ultimately have a winner because they ran out of sandwiches.

That was probably for the better, Pidge pointed out to the group, because it would sure be hard to swim if you were busy vomiting up excess sandwiches. She looked pointedly at Hunk when she spoke.

"What? I didn't eat that much… and I don't vomit as much anymore, anyways."

"Suuure." She replied, drawing out her response as she helped Allura and Shiro gather up the picnic stuff back into the basket.

As they headed back to the house, Hunk and Lance fell into step with Pidge. She glanced sideways at them. Here they were, years after their brief foray at the Garrison's academy, still side by side. A trio.

Although they were much more than a trio. Her gaze shifted to the rest of her group. Allura, Shiro, Coran, and Matt. Her Voltron family.

She loved each and every one them.

Pidge swung her hands as she walked. When the back of hand brushed against Hunk's hand, something once again short circuited within her mind. Covertly, she peered out of the corner of her eye at him as an unwelcome warmth spread across her cheeks.

What was wrong with her?

\- **x** \- **x** \- **x** -

 **A/N:** Space dad says no throwing sandwiches.


	3. IPL

Chapter 3: **IPL**

 _"Information processing language includes features that help programs with performing simple problem solving actions, such as lists, dynamic memory allocation, and **cooperative multitasking**."_

\- **x** -

"Is that… a goat?" Hunk noticed them first.

"What, where? Oh my gosh! Oh no! They've gotten out! How'd they get out!?" Cried Allura.

"We have goats? Since when have we had goats?" Muttered Keith.

"What, are they not supposed to be out? I thought you could, like, let them roam and they'd just go back to their pen at night." Lance sheepishly commented.

"No, what gave you that idea?" Pidge chastised Lance as Shiro and Allura started running after the goats.

"Uuuh… would video games not be a good answer to that question?"

And so, team Voltron spent over an hour chasing down the goats and herding them back into their pen. In between chasing after the hoofed demons, a million comments about goats and the practicality of owning them were thrown around ("Seriously, why do we have goats!?" Said Keith, "Uh dude, have you ever tried fresh goat cheese?" Replied Hunk). Pidge mostly stayed out of the argument.

By the time they had finished catching all the goats and putting them back in their pen, none of them were in the mood for swimming.

After getting cleaned up, Hunk and Lance set out for the grocery store. Hunk had wanted to go to the grocery store for obvious reasons. He convinced Lance to go with him, partially because Lance needed to cool down. Right after getting the the last goat into the pen, Lance and Keith had started yelling at each other. Pidge wasn't quite sure what had started it, but she think Keith might have asked something along the lines of, _do you even know how to operate a latch?_ She wasn't sure though.

Taking a lion to the grocery store would be too ostentatious, so the two boys piled in a very small (but "Very eco-friendly!" according to Coran) Honda Fit and took off for the store. Pidge stood on the porch and watched them drive away. For some odd reason, she found herself wondering if Hunk would, like Matt, think the grocery store cashiers were cute.

She shook those thoughts out of her head and went upstairs to work on some basic encryptions for the new Castle's systems.

Pidge managed to stay focused on this task, even after she heard the boys return. She continued to maintain her focus even after Hunk started cooking and the smells wafted into her room. By the time that Hunk called the whole team to come eat, she'd accomplished quite a lot.

Dinner was amazing, obviously.

Pidge wasn't really positive what she was eating, but it was delicious. Near the end of the meal, when Hunk leaned toward her and asked what she thought, _be honest_ , she beamed at him and told him quite honestly that his cooking was even better than she remembered.

After dinner, Allura wanted to look over some of the safety protocols that Pidge had programmed. The two girls left the boys to their own shenanigans as they went to Allura's room to look over everything together.

Those shenanigans ended up being a game of risk, which didn't go so well. Later that night, standing at the foot of the stairs, Hunk leaned in and told Pidge what happened in a soft, amused whisper. _So what had had happened_ , he explained, was that Keith had been targeting Lance since the beginning of the game. The two got into a full out feud in the game, which resulted in Lance losing ( _Big surprise,_ Pidge had commented with a snort). Lance was furious and began insisting that Keith had cheated. This whole hullabaloo ended with Lance tackling Keith off the couch, and Shiro having to drag the two apart.

"So same old, same old?" Pidge had joked, grinning.

Sleep came easy that night. The whole day had thoroughly worn out Pidge and she slipped easily off to the world of dreams.

The next few days seemed to fly by. All of the paladins kept busy, rotating between working on Castle stuff, trips to home depot for patchwork materials, and general housework/farm tasks. To make all this a little less hectic, Allura got a large white board and started assigning tasks to everyone each day.

"How'd I get stuck with goat duty?" Keith complained on the first day that Allura implemented the task board. "Shouldn't Lance have to take care of the goats?"

"You want us to trust Lance with the goats?" Replied Shiro.

"Oh… good point."

"I've said I'm sorry like a thousand times!" Lance barked with annoyance at the two of them.

Thanks to the task board, Pidge found herself more than busy. Allura seemed to severely underestimate how long programming tasks took, such as _create and code a fake weapon to work with the hologram program_ and _get communication system set up_. So, not only did Pidge have these intensive coding tasks to work on, but she still had to milk the goats, vacuum, and go to the pet store to buy special, fancy mouse food.

Dinner seemed to be the only time that she could sit down, relax, and talk with the other paladins. Even after dinner, most of them would wander off on their own, either to work on stuff or play cat themed games on their game tablets.

It was tiring, but Pidge knew it'd be worth it. The sooner they had a new Castle of Lions, the better.

They all kept up this hard work until one morning, as Hunk was frying up some thoroughly cheesy omelets, Allura came downstairs wearing a cute little bikini.

Pidge shoved her brother away from her as he coughed so hard on his coffee that it went up his nose and out all over the table. "You're gross." She told him flatly as she handed him some napkins. Matt didn't even remove his eyes from Allura as he took the napkins from her and began to blindly dab at his face and then the table.

"Good morning everyone!" Allura chirped cheerfully, probably utterly unaware of the effect she was having on some of the males in the room. Even Shiro looked a little red in the face.

Coran was the only one who truly didn't seem the slightest bit phased. "Are we going swimming today?" He squealed in excitement.

Allura beamed and nodded. "Well, I figure we've all been working so very hard! It's time that we all take some time to relax. We've all earned it."

"I think that sounds like a great idea." Agreed Shiro, as he looked everywhere but at Allura.

"Well," Hunk commented, turning his attention back to the omelet, "food first. You can't skip breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day!"

Allura plopped herself in a stool and her and Coran became discussing the _floaties_ that they had purchased from some store in the Earth mall. Pidge half listened to their conversation as she enjoyed her cheesy omelet and her heavy-on-the-cream coffee.

Her breakfast was further disrupted when bickering voices from the hallway into the kitchen.

"I can't believe you! They're good movies!"

"No, the story line is vague and several of the characters were a waste of space."

"You just need to watch them again. Rey is such a badass, how could you not like her?"

Before Keith could reply, the pair turned into the kitchen together. That's when they both laid their eyes on bikini-clad Allura (who waved kindly at them before going back to her omelet). A long moment passed, and then Lance whistled in admiration. "Damn Allura, that bikini looks good on -"

Before Lance could finish his sentence, Keith punched him hard in the arm.

"OW!" Yelped Lance, "What the fuck was that for!?"

"Nothing, just a manifestation of my hatred for you." Keith growled as he turned and stalked out of the kitchen.

Lance sputtered in anger, demanding to no one in particular _what the hell does 'manifesty-ach-on' even mean,_ while Allura shouted after Keith, "We're going swimming in half an hour! Please join us!"

Surprisingly, Keith did end up joining the group for swimming.

After breakfast was cleaned up, the paladins all split ways to go change (except for Allura, who was obviously already ready).

Pidge dug through her swim suits, unsatisfied at everything she touched. Most of the swimwear in her dresser was from when she was a kid. She'd grabbed it from her parent's house without really looking at it. Now, holding up the pieces, she realized that there was no way she was fitting into them.

The good news was that Allura had bought her a swimsuit when she had bought her bad news was that Allura had bought her a swimsuit just like her own.

Honestly, it was a little more flesh that Pidge was used to revealing now-a-days. Hell, over the last few years, she had spent the majority of her time her flight suit, which covered absolutely every inch of her skin.

 _Oh well_ , Pidge thought, _beggars can't be choosers_. Besides, she wasn't swimming with strangers, she was swimming with her team. They probably wouldn't notice.

They noticed.

Or, at least Lance did. The boys were already splashing around in the book when Pidge got outside with her towel hanging on her arm.

The blue paladin shouted, "Holy shit, Pidge has boobs! When did that happen?"

Several things happened: Pidge went bright red. Shiro started chastising Lance. Matt swam over to Lance threw himself at him, shoving Lance underwater.

On the far side of the pool, Allura and Keith were relaxing in lounge chairs. "I think you look lovely, Pidge." Allura said.

"Uh, thanks." Pidge replied flatly, probably not even loud enough for Allura to hear. Oh well.

Lance fought off Matt and resurfaced. Swimming closer, he peered closer Pidge, which only served to make her more self-conscious. She held her towel in front of her and scowled at him.

"I mean, I really shouldn't be surprised, I did basically see them the other day." Lance commented loudly, continuing his thought chain from earlier as if it had been totally okay.

"I'm going to kill him." Matt stated flatly before launching himself at Lance, who squawked in alarm.

"Hunk, save me!" Only, Hunk was glaring at him too. Really, really glaring at him.

The only reason Lance didn't get torn apart was because Shiro grabbed Matt and started yelling orders at everyone.

"... okay, I'm out." Pidge stated flatly before turning on heel and heading back towards the house.

She had barely made it twenty feet when she almost ran into Coran. "Hello Pidge! Good timing, could you help me for a dobash or two with these floaties?" By floaties, he meant the inflated monstrosities that he was carrying. One was a giant crocodile, another a giant popsicle, and the third an old school battleship.

He shoved the battleship inflatable into her arms before she could say no.

Sighing, she followed Coran back to the pool, resigned to her fate.

The floaties ended up being great, as they grabbed everyone's attention. Hunk and Matt immediately started warring to get on top of the crocodile, while Shiro was carefully trying to ease himself onto the battleship. It was pretty cute, in all honesty.

What Hunk and Matt didn't know was that they were about to lose the war for the crocodile. Grinning dangerously, Pidge took two big steps forward and was about to launch herself into the water when Allura yelped, "Pidge!"

Pidge stumbled to a stop with less an inch before the edge of the pool. "Ah!" She yelped, "What?"

Stomping over to where Pidge was, Allura glared at her and held up a bottle of sunblock. "Sunblock first. This sun has strong ultraviolet rays and you need to protect your skin!"

"But…" Glancing back at the boys, Pidge whimpered, "... crocodile."

"You can play with them after putting on sunblock."

"... fine."

Pidge put on sunblock at lightning speed. Arm, arm, leg, leg, face, ears, neck,a quick subtle turn away from everyone else, chest, belly.

"Okay done!" Pidge said, practically throwing the sunblock onto a chair.

"Wait!" Commanded Allura, crossing her arms. "Did someone get your back?"

Bouncing on her toes, Pidge let out a little whine. "Alluuuuura, come on."

"I will not have one of my paladins getting unnecessarily fried in the heat!"

"Geez… I'll do it if you'll both just shut up." Keith spoke up, putting down a book he'd been reading. Both girls grumbled _fine_ and glared at each other stubbornly.

"Wait! Wait wait wait… uh." Hunk had extracted himself from the crocodile war, allowing Matt to claim a temporary victory (Lance was sneaking up on him from behind with a dangerous gleam in his eye). The yellow paladin pulled himself out of the pool and awkwardly said, "I can, um, do it. The sunblock. Yea."

A heat, one that she was quickly becoming familiar with, rushed to her cheeks.

His hands on her shouldn't really be that big of a deal… and yet, it was. It was illogical but irrefutable.

Neither she or Hunk noticed the eye rolls the rest of the group was doing as he squirted out lotion onto his hand and began to sloppily apply it to her back and shoulders. Neither of them noticed Allura giggling or when she whispered to Keith, _yea, you're right_. Neither of them noticed Matt elbowing Shiro and whispering, _you're going to owe me money_. No, the two were much too busy within their own heads to pay attention to the other paladins.

Something did change in Pidge's mind through this process. She didn't notice it right away. Yet, the effects were almost immediate. The pair jumped into the pool together and started to war for the popsicle inflatable (Shiro was quickly shoved off, much to his disappoint).

Laughter spilled up from the pool, filling the morning sky.

Her hands on him, his hands on her. It was all part of the game and at the same time, it wasn't. Pidge didn't realize that their systems had shifted commands, had shifted protocol, that there was another programming within herself that had taken over.

At one point, they even started a funny little game where Hunk held Pidge close to himself, bridal style, and asked her programming questions. If she got them wrong, she got dunked into the water. The game was fun for more reasons than one. It also helped that Pidge got basically every question right. That is, until Hunk narrowed his eyes, huffed, and switched to questions about food.

Pidge didn't so well with the food round. There was a lot of complaints shouted between laughing and spitting out water. Complaints like, _there's no such thing as a risotto! What, are you sure bulgogi isn't Russian!? Ah, you boob, you got water up my nose!_

After swimming, after changing back to normal clothes, the two pretended to forget about the task board and wandered off to work on the training deck's programming together. Allura almost said something about it, but Shiro stopped her (despite the fact that he knew that decision was most likely going to cause him to lose his bet in Matt).

They got a lot of work done. The two were a rather dynamic duo, just like the old days. They passed back and forth their code, discussed parameters, suggested new ideas. When one said _we need to improve the system's dynamic memory_ the other didn't reply with _oh what's that_ or something equally as clueless. It was rather refreshing to Pidge, who normally could only talk about her programming with Matt in between his ogling of girls.

They were so caught up in their technological improvements that they almost let 5 a'clock pass. It was Pidge who noticed, asking Hunk if he was planning to cook dinner today or if Coran was going to do it.

"Me!" He had shouted before closing his programs, jumping up, grabbing Pidge's arm, and dragging her out of the new Castle.

She let him drag herself back into the farmhouse, to the kitchen. As he began to busy himself with pots, pans, instructions, and convincing Coran to let him cook, Pidge popped herself onto a stool in the kitchen.

She kept him company as he cooked.

Dinner was obviously great. What was even better was that while Lance got a tiny, mediocre slice of meat, Pidge got the absolute best piece of the roast. While Lance complained, Pidge made sure to enjoy her perfect meal.

After dinner, the group, minus Coran (who wanted to finish reading War and Peace, which Shiro had gotten him hooked on) gathered for more 'team building' exercises. In this case, an Earthly game that Allura had heard about on her adventures to the markets: Cards Against Humanity.

While some of the paladins quite enjoyed the game, some of the others were more horrified. Shiro and Allura became more and more vocal in their distaste for the game with every card played. In particular, Allura kept pointing out, _but that's not even funny, it's just… sexual!_

Oh well. For Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and even Keith, the game was a blast. Every round seemed to get worse and worse in the greatest way. There were more than a few highlights (in the opinions of these four, of course, not in the minds of Allura or Shiro).

Keith kept trying to not pick Lance's card but somehow managed to always pick it.

Pidge lost her composure more than one on particularly gruesome-but-hilarious card combinations.

Hunk had a hard time reading a loud some of the dirty cards when he was judge, causing Lance to pretty regularly lean over and read them whenever Hunk turned red and paused.

Perhaps the best part was when Lance had a black card that read, _I drink to forget __. Most of the cards were funny, sure, but it was the last card that had Lance frozen and sputtering. Before he even read it outloud, he demanded to the group, "You can make your own cards?"

Keith grinned big and commented calmly, "Yea, they provide a few cards just for that purpose."

Reluctantly, Lance read aloud the card, "I drink to forget... free range goats." As Lance crossed his arms and pouted, the rest of them laughed at his expensive. Pouty or not, Lance was still a good sport and picked that card, which happened to have been played by Keith. Keith, who had one of the biggest grins that Pidge had ever seen him with. As Lance handed Keith the card, Keith reached out and ruffled Lance's hair.

It was kind of cute, in an unpredictable, I-hope-they-continue-to-play-nicely sort of way.

Before long, it was late. They wrapped up the game and then all went their separate ways. Teeth were brushed, pajamas were put on, and beds were climbed into.

For Pidge, two of those three things were completed. However, instead of crawling in bed, she gathered some of her supplies. According to her bedroom window, tonight was a beautiful, cloudless night. Perfect for testing communications gear.

It didn't even take long for her to set up all hear gear once she got up to the roof of the farm house. The new dishes were easy to prop up and balance at the top of the roof, where it V-ed. She placed her computer on a flat ledge and then placed herself next to it, basically sprawled out on the rough roof tiles.

One day, when the group was back to exploring the universe looking for aliens to save, they would need this communications gear. During their time fighting Zarkon and Lotor, they'd experienced communications failure several times. Pidge wanted to maximize the tech before it even went into the Castle, in hopes of minimizing the chance of failure.

Diagnostic tests take some time to run. After tweaking some code and running some quick tests, she started a longer diagnostic, on that would take ten or so minutes.

So she flopped all the way back against the roof and stared up at the moon. It was really a beautiful night. The night sky was sprinkled with bright lights, hints of far off stars and galaxies. Stars and galaxies that Pidge, in her supernatural, technological mech-lion had visited. It was pretty crazy.

"Hey." Hunk's voice drifted to her from the far end of the roof, where just his head and shoulders were visible.

"Hey." Pidge replied softly, trying to ignore the sense of panic that spiked in her heart. She had no reason to be nervous around Hunk, yet… she was. Especially right now, alone, surrounded by a beautiful, quiet night.

"Do you mind if I join you?" He asked.

"Sure." Nervous or not, Pidge would never turn down his company.

And that's how she ended up laying next to Hunk on the roof, watching the moon and stars. They had a few inches of space between them, but every so often he'd move his arms while talking and brush her's.

He was telling her about the space mall, the one they'd visited a long time ago. Hunk had swung by a few times on his travels and each time he returned, the restaurant he'd helped had gotten bigger. On his last visit, he'd even helped them introduce a few more menu options. The story brought a big smile to Pidge's face. It was adorable how enthusiastic Hunk got about cooking.

He asked about her travels, so she told him. She told him about the time she and Matt went into a space worm (Hunk was very sympathetic to that story), she told him about the time Matt got themselves captured by an Amazonian-like tribe of females, she told him about the time she won an alien video game contest in order to get the trophy made of rare metal.

Their conversation flowed easily as they bathed in the moonlight.

At one point, Hunk asked her awkwardly, "Hey, um, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure?" Pidge said, nervous enough she wasn't sure what he was about to say.

"Uh... gosh, how to ask this… I'm just, curious, and was wondering…" Somehow, Hunk's babbling was only making it worse. Pidge felt like she should assume the worse, but she wasn't sure what the worse was. "Today, what did Lance mean when he said he'd basically seen… um, you… before?"

"Oh!" Pidge sighed in relief before laughing. "Oh, that. Lance was being an idiot. Do you remember my green tank top? He came into my room one morning and got all weird about it. Said it was scandalous."

"Oh." The deep breath that escaped Hunk sounded like one of severe relief. _Weird,_ thought Pidge. "That's what that was."

"Yea, Lance is an idiot. Maybe we should wake him up with water guns tomorrow." She commented and turned her heads so she could grin devilishly at Hunk.

He meet her gaze, his dark brown eyes shimmering in the moonlight. "Yea, maybe." He said, his voice a few octaves lower than normal.

They stayed like that for a several long moments, gazing at each other, neither saying anything. Feelings were swirling around in Pidge's mind at heart; glitches. Errors. Problems in her internal programming. Like she'd told Matt barely last week, Hunk and her were friends. They were the techies of the team. They were the right appendages of the lion. That was what they were meant to be: partners in saving the world and maintaining Voltron.

Right?

The stupidest question tumbled out of her mouth. Pidge don't really know why it popped into her head, why she felt the impulse to say, "Did you ever go visit Shay?"

Maybe that was the wrong question to ask. Hunk didn't immediately answer her. She did hear him swallow loudly, though.

Pidge was right about to tell him nevermind when he finally spoke. "Yea. A couple of times." For some reason, this made Pidge's chest feel tight. It was dumb, though. Hunk had the right to visit whoever he wanted in the galaxy. Pidge was his partner, not his mother.

What was there to say? She shouldn't have asked that. Lamely, she stated, "Oh, that's cool."

When Hunk spoke next, his voice managed to become even softer. "We dated for awhile."

Oh.

 _Oh._

Several days ago, when the pair were working on the training suit, they had found that one of Pidge's new coding changes was interfering with the release command. It had been a relatively small command, but in its location, it was causing unexpected consequences. Thanks to this small piece of code, just a couple of sentences, the entire release command prompt was compromised. This small piece of code was almost invisible, unknown to Pidge when the release command first malfunctioned (trapping Hunk in the suit).

Pidge felt a lot like the suit in this particular moment. There was something, somewhere, in her base code that was inferring with everything else. Only, she couldn't run a diagnostics test for her own human emotions. Her brain was a supercomputer but it was outside of her realm of capabilities.

"Oh…" Seriously, her brain was returning a sort of _source not specified_ error code back to her. "That's cool." This emotionless repetition was all that Pidge could force outside of herself.

 _So what, he dated Shay. Is dating? Will go back to dating? It doesn't matter. No, why would it matter? I'm happy for him. He can date whoever he wants._

Two years ago, she really probably wouldn't have cared. This wouldn't be happening. Yet, something had changed. Two years ago, all that Pidge had been concerned about was finding her brother and her brother and then defeating the Galra empire. Concerns like who's-dating-who and modern day teenager stuff weren't high on her list of _Things Katie Cares About._

But now, she was starting to feel like a normal teenager who went swimming, played card games, and played cat-themed apps.

But now, she was slowly acquiring a wardrobe that consisted of more than just hoodies and flight suits.

But now, she was reclining on the roof with Hunk so close she could hear every breath he took.

"Pidge?" Pidge was so focused in her own thoughts and her own realizations of how much she'd personally changed since the last time that she, Hunk, and Lance sat on a roof together. "Pidge. _Piiidge_... Katie!"

Hunk saying her name - her real name? - snapped her out of her thoughts. It was weird. She couldn't remember the last time that she heard Hunk say Katie. Maybe not since she told the group that she was, in fact, a girl. Pidge was pretty sure Hunk had asked which name she preferred. At the time, she was consumed with how much she missed her father and brother, so... She said Pidge.

It was kind of neat to hear Hunk say _Katie_. "Sorry," Pidge finally replied, reaching up and scratching the side of her neck sheepishly, "I got distracted."

"You don't say." He hummed, amused. Hunk paused and Pidge risked glancing at him. She found him looking straight at her, his brows furrowed a little. For some reason, it made her heart race. Pidge turned her gaze back up to the beautiful night sky. "It didn't work out."

"It… didn't?" That caught Pidge a bit off guard. Way back when, she'd had the chance to see Shay and Hunk together in the same place. Those two had gotten along splendidly. Shay had been full of smiles and giggles, which had only encouraged Hunk to fish out more and more cheesy jokes. Other than the whole alien-and-human issue, they seemed… good together (for some reason, this thought felt rather sour in Pidge's brain).

"No," Hunk murmured and sighed again. Pidge listened silently as he explained, "we started dating when Allura and I visited the Balmera for a new crystal. We had to stay there for awhile so that Allura could prepare the Balmera by providing it with glow-y energy. It was… nice, at first."

"Oh." Pidge really needed to get her vocal systems back online.

"It just… well, I couldn't talk to her about tech. She barely understood the internet. So, python and PHP were out. Couldn't talk to her about food either. Her people weren't very culinary adventurous, and neither was she." Hunk rubbed his palms together, "But like, I know dating isn't about interests. It's more than that… but that more was missing too. She was… passive."

"Passive?" Repeated Pidge, baffled.

Suddenly, Hunk barked out a short laugh, "Yea, god, that sounds terrible. I don't know how else to put it. She wasn't playful. Like, in so many senses of the word. I tried to teach her how to play Uno and she purposefully lost so that I could win."

Now Pidge was giggling, even though it was a terrible thing to laugh at. She knew that they shouldn't be laughing at Shay's expense, but it was rather reassuring to hear that Hunk hadn't fallen head over heels with Shay.

Also, there was that intriguing note that Hunk wanted to date someone playful.

Pidge refused to let her mind dwell on that point.

"Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out with Shay." Pidge told him as kindly as she could. Whether she actually truly felt sorry was another thing. Something terrible within her was glad that didn't work out between him and Shay.

"I think it was for the better." Hunk replied simply.

A quiet settled over them.

Satellites slowly crossed the night sky, their lights blinking infrequently. Other than that, the galaxy above them was peaceful and seemly immobile.

"So… did you, ah, date anyone?" Hunk's question almost seemed to echo in the peaceful night.

Pidge was glad that it was dark so that he couldn't see her blush. This conversation was chock full of awkward questions. She saw no reason to lie though, so she told him, "Kind of. Nothing serious. Just like, little flings with rebel fighters." As a growing teenager, she couldn't have been blamed for being curious about making out with boys (alien or otherwise).

"Flings?" Asked Hunk curiously.

"Like, make-out sessions." She replied with a shrug. "Don't get me wrong, it was all PG stuff. Nothing crazy."

"Huh." He hummed, sounding amused.

A silence settled over them again.

Over the last two year, she'd managed to sneak in some pretty intense make out sessions with three different rebel fighters. Half the fun had been in enjoying the rush of feelings her hormones gave her, and the other half the fun had been in hiding it from Matt.

None of those boys had left any sort of serious impressions in her heart.

Sometimes, her brother would joke that she was secretly a robot. When they'd parted with each individual fighter's group, she'd hardly been phased. While her brother would be mourning the loss of some girl he'd had his eyes on, Pidge would be busying herself with some newfangled upgrades to the lion. Sometimes, her brother would have noticed that a particular fighter couldn't keep his eyes off her. Ask they flew away, Matt would try and tease her by asking, _won't you miss him? He seemed nice_.

They had been nice. Making out with them was nice. But no, she wasn't going to miss any of them.

Pidge finally indulged some of her own shortcomings. Stealing another glance sideways at Hunk, she wondered what it would be like to truly love someone. To crave their touch, their presence, their words.

They spoke a few more times, talking about this and that, as they laid on the roof. On occasion, Pidge would check her computer and ask Hunk what test should be ran next. Then, they'd go back to talking about things that didn't matter. Video games. Parsnips. Inflatable crocodiles.

Gradually, the conversation died out.

Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and the wind whispered as it slid through the farm's trees. Without meaning to, Pidge fell asleep on the roof.

\- **x** - **x** \- **x** -


	4. Fortran

Chapter 4: **Fortran**

" _Fortran is a general purpose, complied imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and_ _ **computational chemistry**_ _._ "

\- **x** -

The tweeting of birds broke through Pidge's dream of programming a cat-themed app. The girl yawned and shifted, trying to make herself comfortable. Pidge was by no means an early riser nor was she about to being one.

Only, it was proving very hard to become comfortable. There was also a heavyweight draped over her shoulder, like a heavy yet thin blanket. Weird.

She peeled her eyes open a little tiny bit…

… and found a caramel colored teenager not even two inches from her face.

With her glasses sitting askew on her face and sleep still addling her mind, it took Pidge a tick to recognize Hunk. His legs were twisted with hers and his arm thrown over her shoulder.

Through the fuzz of her sleepiness, a few memories from the previous night came back to her. Her and Hunk had been stargazing slash working on the communications system. Instead of finding their ways back inside to their comfy beds, they had fallen asleep on the roof.

Oh well. Pidge wasn't particularly concerned and, judging by the pink-blue sky, it was still very early in the morning. It wasn't time to wake up anyways.

The half-awake girl snuggled closer to her warm friend, fishing her hands in his shirt before yawning and closing her eyes again.

Her next dream was about fighting Darth Vader's Death Star. She was Luke Skywalker and her yellow lion her ship. It was a pretty great dream, especially when she saved the prince, who just so happened to be Hunk. Only, he was dressed as Aladdin and _man_ did he have nice abs

" _Pidge._ " Aladdin-Hunk whispered to her as he reached out and cupped her chin. In her dream, Pidge giggled and dropped a smooth pickup line. Or, at least she thought she did. It was the dream world and, like a broken records, the storyline was a bit jumpy. Regardless, Aladdin-Hunk was so impressed that he leaned closer to her, saying her name again in a soft, sing-song voice, " _Hey, Piiidge._ "

She could feel his breath on her face. Purring happily, Pidge closed the space between them and brushed her lips against his.

Aladdin-Hunk didn't kiss back. Hm. That wasn't a very polite. Annoyed, Pidge groggily opened her eyes.

Normal Hunk was staring at her, his eyes wide like saucers.

"Uuuuuh." That noise drawled out of Pidge's throat as her brain rebooted and began processing the information around her. Facts poured into her noggin: she was cuddled up with Hunk (in a very snug manner), his light brown skin was undeniably rosier in color, and his face was no more two inches from hers. These facts ran through a very complex mental algorithm.

Whoops.

The last bits of sleep were fading from her mind, leaving Pidge very, very aware of what she had just done.

Neither of them were in any sort of rush to say anything.

That didn't mean that Pidge's brain wasn't processing at high speeds. A thousands thoughts flew through her mind, each thought becoming more and more panicked with every second. There was one particular question that kept shoving its way to the front of her mind: _what do I do now?_

Pidge was putting off answer that question as long as she could. Unfortunately, it was getting harder and harder to do as she became more and more aware of her situation. She wasn't just cuddled with Hunk; she was thoroughly intertwined with him. Her legs were wrapped in a borderline amorous fashion around his leg, and his hand - the one of the arm that was drooped over her shoulder - was now delicately touching the back of her neck.

Internally, she was screaming. There were emotions and feelings, ones that she didn't know what to do or how to handle, rushing through her veins.

And then it got worse. Hunk's eyes started to close. His breath came out heavier. His hand pressed into the back of her neck, very gently pushing her forward.

The anxious screaming in her head got louder. At the same time, her heart beat so hard that she felt like it might explode. New parts of her were burning and a feeling - almost like an intoxication - snuck into her brain.

She almost kissed him.

Almost.

When recalling this story in the future, Pidge would often leave out what happened next, or just say something nice and innocent, like _oh, well, then we both woke up all the way and were like, whoops!_ That's not what happened, though. Rather, what happened was that Pidge's nerves got the better of her and she reacted on impulse.

By slamming her knee up and into Hunk.

As he coughed and swore bloody murder, she quickly extracted herself from Hunk and practically dove off the low end of the roof.

"Good morning, Pi -" Allura began to cheerfully great Pidge as she dashed through the kitchen.

"GOOD MORNING, NOTHING HAPPENED!" Pidge all but screamed as she reached the end of the kitchen. At the speed she was going, she had to reach out and use the door frame to help her make the turn into the hallway.

As Pidge shot to her door, she could hear Lance's casually observe, "I think something happened," and Allura humming in agreement.

When she slammed door, Coran's voice rang out, yelling something about this farmhouse being expensive. It didn't matter. Pidge was on a mission. Throw the latch. Check. Close the window. Check. Hide under the sheets. Check.

Well, it was there was no helping it. Pidge had officially ruined her relationship with Hunk. They had had something good. They had been partners in crime, the two techies, the right side of Voltron. He was her perfect best friend. Only, now she'd gone and made things weird, both by kissing him and then immediately attacking him.

 _He's realized you're crazy_ , she thought to herself, _that's for certain_.

Pidge was seriously considering never leaving her room. Maybe Matt could pilot the green lion in her place.

Over the next few hours, the other paladins all took turns knocking on Pidge's door and asking her if _she wanted to talk_ or some variant of that. Most of them got a stubborn and curt reply - _no_. Lance, on the other hand, got every cuss word thrown at him through the door when he started singing, "Pidge and Hunk, sittin' in a tree -" He stopped singing when, in her rage, Pidge reminded him that she could easily control the life support systems on his lion.

There was a point when Hunk came to her door. He knocked softly and spoke in a gentle voice. It kind of reminded Pidge of how one might speak to wild animal that had been cornered.

"Pidge, I know you're… freaking out. But, can we talk about it?"

She didn't reply right away. She couldn't. So, she sat there for almost a full minute, gathering her thoughts, trying to figure herself out. When Pidge finally managed to compose herself, she wasn't even sure if he was still at the door. "I'm sorry for kicking you." She did her best to speak up, but her voice wavered nervously.

"It's fine, it… uh, happens." From inside of her room, Pidge could hear Hunk chortle a little. Before she could find more words to say, he added playfully, "Though, technically, you kneed me."

She sat up a little, frowning, "Hunk, it's the same thing."

"Uh, no it isn't. Trust me, as someone who has been both kicked and kneed, they are distinctly different!"

"But kneeing is a kind of kicking. You hit someone with your leg."

"I would say that it is a cousin of kicking, but not a type of kicking."

It was a weird conversation to have through a door. What was weirder was that it was causing Pidge to forget some of her nerves and funny feelings. This is was probably due to the fact that Pidge did not like to lose arguments, especially ones that were informational or technical in nature.

Her eyes drifted to the little mechanical lion that sat upon her nightstand. "Silver lion, what is the definition of to kick?"

"Oh that's cheap." Hunk commented through the door, although he sounded amused.

The little silver lion powered up and its lights flashed. "Kick. Verb. Strike or forcibly propel someone with the foot."

"HA!" Shrieked Hunk.

"YOUR LION IS BUSTED!" Pidge shrieked back.

"You're busted." Hunk teased in reply.

Cheeks red, Pidge threw herself out of bed and stalked over to the door. She threw the door open and started to tell off Hunk, "I'm going to go in and reprogram your little lion's dictionary -"

She didn't finish her playful (yet relatively serious) threat because Hunk took several quick steps into the room, reached for her, and smashed his lips down onto hers.

All of her systems went into overdrive. Her heart raced, her body heated up, and she became hyper aware of how one of his hands had pushed into her hair. His other hand was resting snuggly against her hip, pulling her towards him; not that that was necessary. Pidge felt like a magnet and Hunk was metal. She melded willingly into him.

Mechanically, the kiss was like all passionate kisses. Lips against lips, wetness, heat. A few moments to gasp. More kissing. The hint of a tongue.

Despite the technical similarities, this kiss was nothing like any of the others Pidge had experienced. Every inch of her was alive as she wrapped her arms under his and rested her hands on his muscular shoulder blades. There were new parts of her mind awake, throwing their weight into her actions, like some sort of emotional back-up system.

Then reality came crashing back down on her. _She_ was kissing _Hunk._

Panic erupted within her and she shoved her hands against Hunk, pushing him away. Yelping, he stumbled backwards and out of her door. A door which she quickly grabbed and slammed shut.

Pidge flopped back against the door and slid down until she was sprawled on the ground. Her head was spinning and she could feel Hunk's lips on her's. Adrenaline surged through her body.

Laughter. Boisterous laughter from outside her door. Hunk, for some ungodly reason, was laughing.

 _Maybe he's crazier than me._ The corner of her lip quirking upward a bit at that thought.

It took awhile for Hunk to stop laughing. When he finally had his giggles under control, he asked, clearly amused, "Pidge, was that necessary?" He was on the other side of the door so Pidge obviously couldn't see him; despite this, she felt almost certain he was wearing some sort of stupid, shit-eating grin at the moment. She could hear it in his voice.

"... maybe." She pouted in reply. "You… you're making me confused."

He chortled, "In a bad way?"

Pidge glanced down at her hands and thought about it. The feelings, the kiss, they were rather terrifying. Emotions were not easily quantifiable. They weren't predictable. They were nothing like the computer code that she spent day in and day out working on.

But…

There was something beautiful about them.

These fickle feelings brought with them new sensations. Warmth, excitement, shivers (the good kind). When she kissed Hunk, it had felt like someone had dumped a bucket of dopamine right into her brain.

"Not bad…" Pidge whispered, then raised her voice, "although you didn't have to surprise me like that, you dick!" By the end of her sentence, a playful note had snuck into her voice.

"Hey, you surprised me this morning first!"

"That's not fair, I was asleep!"

"Sure you were."

The two of them continued to bicker through the door, their words a mixture of flirting and sassy retorts. They stayed like that for a while, an inch apart, each of them becoming a little more bold with every minute.

There was be a point, nearly an hour later, where Pidge finally opened the door. This time, Hunk didn't rush her; he held his hand out and she took it, blushing furiously. Her face would retain this rosy blush for the rest of the day while his face would retain a rather goofy smile.

Later that day, at dinner, Pidge found a little note carefully scrawled onto her napkin.

* * *

try:

hunkSays ('Will you go out on a date with me?')

pidgeAnswer ()

if pidgeAnswer = 'No.' :

Hunk = 'Utterly crushed.'

else if pidgeAnswer = 'Yes!' :

Hunk = 'Very, very happy.'

print 'and there was much rejoicing.'

* * *

There was, indeed, much rejoicing. 

\- **x** \- **x** \- **x** -

 **A/N:** A cute little ending. :)

Sorry for the quick ending. It was a casual story and it seemed right. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
